Chapter 10
Jo
The valley overlook at the top of the trail Adam had chosen for us this morning felt like something out of a storybook.
At this elevation, spring came late, and the summer had only just taken hold. Thatches of wildflowers dotted the landscape, not unlike they had at Tristan and Winnie’s wedding weeks ago farther down. The trees had thinned out, and the sky was crystal blue with cotton-ball clouds. It warmed up as we went, and two hours after we started, we sat at the scenic spot, just breathing.
Beside me on the ground, Adam’s head rested on one of his arms for a pillow, and he looked so relaxed, he might’ve been asleep except he’d just asked me to join him.
I took another moment to inhale all this wild beauty and exhale the anxieties plaguing me. I pushed away the concerns about how hard it had been to snap out of my fear this morning and how hard Adam had worked to get me to let go of the mood that’d kept me from much more than basic responses to his questions.
And the hug… the hug that tilted my world on its axis. The hug that felt like so much more than a simple embrace. It’d had words in the pressure of his arms around me—I’m here for you. It’d spoken clearly with his hand brushing along my back—I’m sorry you’re hurting. It’d caught me by surprise and spelled a truth I knew in my gut but had felt so powerfully, I’d choked up—I care about you.
Yes, all that from a hug, his soft caress of my cheek the exclamation. That “Jo, honey,” in his low voice, the honey reminding me of those Southern roots I too easily forgot about.
Like so many things, the man had understood the assignment and done it well.
With one more giant, cleansing breath, I situated myself a foot or so from him, settling into the space. I wasn’t usually the kind of woman who would just lay down in the dirt, but I’d need a thorough shower after this anyway, and it looked so peaceful, any concerns I might’ve had were nowhere to be found.
“Here, up for just a sec,” he said, leaning to ball up his jacket and slide it right where my head would go.
I snuggled into the lumpy material, not caring it wasn’t comfortable. I felt relaxed and almost drowsy now that we’d stopped, and the full weight of our exertion and the exhaustion of the night before hit.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he said, voice low and close enough I could tell he was facing me.
I rolled toward him, tucking my hands under my cheek on top of his jacket. “Thanks for letting me tag along.”
He smiled softly, his face so stupidly handsome I probably shouldn’t have let myself keep looking at him from this close range, but I did nonetheless.
“I’m glad you did.”
I wouldn’t presume to read his thoughts, but the way his expression darkened tipped me off to what I thought he might’ve had on his mind. He kept his mouth shut, though, studying my face with those heartbreaking blue eyes and not speaking.
So I did. Because I remembered Adam was my friend and I’d felt the truth of it in everything from the moment he’d picked me up this morning to this very second gazing at him next to me. And he was on my side. He wanted me to tell him what was going on, and he was virtually the only person I could talk to about this, anyway.
“So part of the reason I wasn’t able to sleep was that the girls want to do a release party for Josie Wade’s next book and invite the author.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. Tricky.”
“Yeah. So I’m just trying to figure out what to do about it.”
He squinted, glancing at the trees or whatever he could see past me before asking, “Could you tell them? I mean, I know this is a secret, and I’m honored to keep it for you indefinitely, but I wonder if you might enjoy having people know? At least your closest friends?”
With a sigh, I rolled onto my back and spoke to the sky. “I’ve been wondering that, too. But there are…” I glanced over to see him still focused fully on me before continuing. “There are real reasons not to. And yes, they absolutely make me a coward, and they have nothing to do with my friends. But it’s still just not…”
When I couldn’t find the word, he stepped in. “You can do whatever you want, Jo. I don’t want to seem critical. I just want to see you happy. If the way things are is doing that, then ride your pen-name pony.”
I chuckled at his turn of phrase. “Well, that sounds so simple.”
“I’m sure it’s not. But you certainly don’t need to worry about my opinion on the matter, and I suspect that when or if you ever tell your girls, they’re going to understand... at least eventually.”
With a laugh, I agreed. “Dove, Nikki, Catherine, and Winnie will be fine. It’ll be Elise and Jess I have to worry about. And…”
When I didn’t finish, he tried, “And?”
My gaze fell to meet his before bouncing away. Whenever our eyes locked, I felt a little lightheaded or dehydrated or not normal enough to be reminded I should probably be getting more protein or whatever it was that would help with this feeling.
“And family.”
“Your sister?”
I nodded at the sky, wondering if he’d heard about my illustrious sister from anyone, or if she was still an unknown in his circles. Eddie James would likely know her, but did she know Elizabeth was my sister?
“She works for the State Department,” I explained into the listening silence he’d offered me.
“Is she at an embassy?” he asked, clearly trying to piece together why my sister would be such a hang-up.
“Uh, she moves around. In fact… you might’ve worked with her on a mission or two. Maybe.” My eyes cut to his and he registered it.
“Not on the diplomacy side, then,” he confirmed.
“No. And so far from the frivolity of writing romance novels, I just… I need to know what I’m doing is just for me. That it’s not going to be evaluated for world-shaping mettle and found lacking.”
He leaned up on an elbow so his face interrupted my view of the sky. “You know what you do matters, right? I’m sure you get fan mail and you can see what your friends think, of course, but you know it’s not a competition?”
I grinned up at his genuine concern and pushed away the little flare of fear at the mention of fan mail. “Thank you for your gentle mansplaining, Doc, but yes. I do.”
He cut me a nasty look. “I wasn’t trying to mansplain. I was just trying to… reassure you. To remind you that whatever you choose to do has value, and it doesn’t get more or less value imbued upon it in comparison to what someone else does.”
His words rang true, and they also cut close to the truth I’d grappled with for many years. Did my work have value in the scheme of things when there were people like Lizzy out there literally changing the world? Or like he’d done for twenty years before retiring, rescuing people and stopping abuses and more?
“I appreciate the reminder. I really do. Thank you,” I said, directing my gaze away from his handsome face. We lay there in the summer morning breeze for another ten minutes before he suggested we head back down.
We chatted amiably enough on the way, the two-hour climb halved on the descent because it was a loop trail, not an out and back. As much as I wanted to spend more time with Adam, I felt a little bruised today. Probably due to the lack of sleep, but if I was honest, it also had to do with feeling like he was here, fully engaged with me and yet still so far away. He was inaccessible to me, and all of this over the course of the morning—his hug, his concern, his wisdom—it was all meant for someone he could see a future with. But he didn’t want that.
And so, I was caught up in my thoughts as we hit the last quarter mile, and that’s when I took a clumsy step and only realized it when my ankle went very, very wrong.
I cried out and lost my footing entirely, dropping hard to my knees.
“Jo!” Adam yelled and turned back for me, sprinting to fall at my feet and help me ease back from my knees onto my butt.
Blood ran from both of my knees, but it was the throbbing, almost blindingly bright pain in my ankle that’d made me cry out and now kept me from catching my breath.
“What is it?” he said, shuffling in his bag for a first aid kit even as he asked, squirting hand sanitizer onto his palms on a reflex.
“My ankle. I stepped wrong.” My voice came out thin and reedy, gritted between my teeth.
His warm hands slid down my calf and gently pushed at a few places over my sock. My hiking boot hid my ankle, so he couldn’t see it.
“Should we take it off?” I asked, worried it might be broken. I couldn’t remember twisting an ankle and having it hurt this bad.
“No. Your boots are going to stabilize it and keep the swelling at bay better than if we removed it for now since we still have to get off this trail.” He dabbed at my bloody knees with clean gauze until the bleeding stopped. “We’ll get you cleaned up and bandaged better back home. Soap and water is best for things like this, so we can skip the stinging antiseptic for now, if that’s okay with you.”
“Yes, definitely.” Though how to get from here to home had become more than a small mystery in my mind.
He gathered the trash into a baggy, sanitized his hands again, tucked the kit away, and zipped his pack before sliding it on his front. Every action was filled with calm, purposeful movement. The hysteria rising in my chest from the pain and the “crap, how am I going to get up and down my stairs to my apartment now?” spiral eased in the face of his confidence.
He stood and pulled me to my uninjured foot, turned, and crouched low in front of me. “Get as close as you can and slide on. If you can get even one knee up by my hip, we’ll be able to get you up here just fine.”
As close as you can. Knee. Hip.Why did these words sound so profoundly suggestive at a time like this? The man had just cleaned up my bloody knees, and he was offering to piggyback me down the mountain, and all I could think of was body parts sounding sexy?
The pain must’ve gone to my head. But mounting my gorgeous hiking buddy proved to be equally mind-melting. Hands gripping my hamstrings just above my knees, bodies bouncing in an alarmingly regular rhythm, I begged my mind to think of things other than his hands on my skin and how solid he was and the fact that he somehow barely seemed winded after carrying a full-grown woman down a mountainside.
And then I remembered. I wrote a scene like this in my book, and as he reached down to gently pat my calf, I realized I’d gotten several details all wrong.
“I’m not going to say this is a good thing, but having you giving me a piggyback is going to help me edit a scene I have just like this in my book.”
“Oh, yeah?” He glanced back, but since I was literally on him, there was no way he could make eye contact.
“Yeah, so really, we can just pretend I meant to do that because I needed help with a scene.”
And maybe we needed to run through exactly what he’d do in other scenarios. I’d talked through the more severe things my hero dealt with on missions, but maybe some of the moments between him and the heroine should be things he showed me, not just told me.
We chuckled at my lame joke as the parking lot came into view, and soon enough, he’d gently set me down on the passenger side and helped me ease into the seat before shutting the door. When he loaded in himself, he handed me my water and watched me drink before taking a few sips of his own and backing out.
It wasn’t until we were a ways down the canyon that he said, “Next time you need help with your book, just ask.”